Griswold to consider settlement in Crouch case

Selectmen will consider a settlement Tuesday in the discrimination complaint filed by former Finance Director Barbara Richardson Crouch.

ALISON SHEA

Selectmen will consider a settlement Tuesday in the discrimination complaint filed by former Finance Director Barbara Richardson Crouch.

First Selectman Philip Anthony said the Board of Selectmen will meet in executive session Tuesday to discuss an “offer” from Crouch and her lawyer. Anthony, citing legal concerns, declined to discuss terms of the possible settlement.

“There has been an attractive offer to the town. It’s an attractive offer, something perhaps worth considering,” he said. “That’s all I can say.”

Selectwoman Theresa Madonna, the Republican challenging Anthony for the town’s top job, has said previously, and repeated Wednesday, that she would not support a settlement.

Resident Alice Stradczuk agreed.

“I think she was way out of line. I don’t think the town should give her any money. I think she should be soundly turned down,” she said.

Petitioning first selectman candidate Peter Zvingilas said he would support a settlement.

“If it’s in the town’s best interest and the cheapest way for us to get out of some guilt, then yes, I would support a settlement,” he said.

The announcement of a possible settlement comes a day after Finance Director Erik Christensen told the Board of Finance that the 2010-11 town budget, the first of two Crouch prepared as finance director, contained an error nearly as large as the one found in the 2011-12 budget.

Crouch had overbudgeted tax revenues by $783,000, so the town came in about $723,000 short. The money will come out of this year’s surplus, and bring the account down to $2 million, or 7 percent of the town budget — lower than the 8.5 percent desired surplus, Christensen said.

Christensen also said Crouch was responsible for a $900,000 error in the 2011-12 budget.

Complaint

Crouch filed a complaint with the state Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities in June alleging she had been the victim of racism, and that she was “constructively discharged” by the town — meaning that they had made her working conditions so awful she had no choice but to quit her $70,000-a-year post in April.

Crouch accepted an $80,000-a-year position as Lebanon’s finance director in March and started in April.

The town filed a 73-page response to her complaint in late July, saying Crouch had been consistently hostile to colleagues to the point of trying to get one bookkeeper fired. It also pointed out the error she made in the budget.

The state had 90 days from the town’s filing its response, or Oct. 18, to decide whether to retain the complaint for further investigation or toss it out.

The commission, however, has held off on a decision pending negotiation between the parties, spokesman Jim O’Neill said.

“We try to see if we can mediate and bring conciliation to cases, so in the process of doing that, it may takes us a little longer to conclude, if the parties are talking and progress is being made,” he said.